HOMEWOOD, Alabama -- When Dixie, a 15-year-old Labrador Retriever, died in November, her owner, Randy Hays, didn't know where to turn.

"It just happened very quickly. I was devastated," Hays said. "This was like a child."

After days of crying, Hays reached out to churches and organizations that aid those in mourning, but found their doors weren't open to people grieving the loss of a pet.

"They were only for people who lost a spouse or child," Hays said.

So Hays turned to the Greater Birmingham Humane Society to help.

Starting March 4 at 5:30 p.m. at the Homewood Public Library, a support group will meet on Tuesday nights for six weeks to help people struggling to cope with the death of a beloved pet.

Efforts to reach the GBHS for comment were unsuccessful, but in a blog post in January the organization said the support group, which will be limited to 20 people, will be called Dixie's Group in "loving memory of the pet who inspired this program."

The group will be led by Larry Michael, a former pastor and grief counselor, who says while there are many differences between mourning the death of a person and the death of a pet, losing a beloved dog, cat or other pet is a significant loss.

That's particularly true for single people or people who never had kids, Michael said.

"Pets are like family members and when one dies, it's traumatic and it can take a lot of time," Michael said.

Compounding that pain is what Michael described as a societal pressure to deny the grief they might be feeling.

"It's one of those things people experience deeply, but they don't talk about," Michael said. "They say, 'I shouldn't feel this way. It's just an animal.' But they do feel that way because of that attachment."

For Michael, it will be the first time to lead a support group for grieving pet owners, but he said the process will be much the same as for those mourning a person's death.

"Grief is grief and grief is a response to loss," Michael said. "I've lost pets and it's been hard for me, like it has for a lot of people."

For more information, call Randy Hays at (205) 542-7111 or email Mary-Grace Wilson at mawilson@gbhs.org.